


Two Points of Contact

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Improv, Improv Dance, Intimacy, Post-Canon, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 03:22:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13895196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: Now again Aziraphale leads, pressing upwards, and Crowley feels his hand, his arm, himself rising in response. His toes are pointed in his snakeskin shoes and all of him is decidedly off-balance. He pushes back, the stick between them held in place, stalled in a precarious, panicked position."Just go with it, my dear," Aziraphale murmurs, and nudges the rod forward again.In which Crowley is introduced to an activity from Aziraphale's new Improv Dance class.





	Two Points of Contact

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by one of my favorite exercises from my own wonderful dance improv class, my spite about someone who wrote that it was impossible to capture dance in writing, and my investment in Aziraphale's future dancing shenanigans. It's very self indulgent, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> There's also some exciting news about this that I'll put in the end notes.
> 
> March 8, 2017: Updated to add some sweat and physicality, thank you HoloXam for the suggestion :)

"Here." Aziraphale places one end of a dowel rod on his finger and extends the other end towards Crowley. "Trust me." 

Crowley trusts Aziraphale, but he does not trust the flimsy wooden stick, or the "dance improv" class Aziraphale took it from. As Crowley presses his finger to the end of the rod, Aziraphale lets go and the rod hangs improbably in the air between their two points of contact. "Why are we doing this?" he mutters.

Aziraphale doesn't answer. He fixes Crowley with a _look,_ somehow different from Aziraphale's other significant _looks_ , and moves his hand forward. Crowley feels the movement through the rod, and without his deciding on it, his own hand drifts back in response. Then Aziraphale pulls back, still looking, and Crowley finds himself pushing forward to preserve the exact distance between them, to keep the stick suspended.

"There we go," Aziraphale says softly.

"You're quite sure this is how they're teaching dance nowadays?” Crowley mutters, testing what happens when his hand moves sideways.

"It's how _somebody_ is."

"It's very different from the Gavotte." 

"Yes, it's more about movement improvisation. Being in the moment, experiencing your body, making your own choices. That sort of thing.” Aziraphale’s gestures become more expansive, and Crowley finds that he can counter them with very small motions.

"Oh, Heaven will love that."

"And you never would Gavotte with me." 

"Of course not. It's undignified."

Aziraphale snorts and pushes the stick forward, so Crowley is slightly off-balance. "Hush," he says. "No more talking. We need to feel the connection."

He moves his hand again, and the stick and Crowley move with it. "Come on," Aziraphale urges, and Crowley responds with a hiss. He backs up, taking the rod and the angel with him. Back, back, then Crowley gets a surge of inspiration and twists sideways. His hand turns. The stick slips. Crowley expects it to clatter, to be done with this strangely intimate proceeding.

The rod doesn't drop. Aziraphale, anticipating his move or reacting with impossible speed, is still on the other end, his hand low and facing up, the stick pressed desperately against the pad of his finger. He'd followed. Or, well. There's the metallic tang of ethereal energy in the air now. He may have cheated. 

Now again he leads, pressing upwards, and Crowley feels his hand, his arm, himself rising in response. His toes are pointed in his snakeskin shoes and all of him is decidedly off-balance. He pushes back, holding the rod between them in place, stalled in a precarious, panicked position.

"Just go with it, my dear," Aziraphale murmurs, and nudges the stick forward again.

Crowley takes a deep breath; he may not understand why this movement, this _threat_ of movement (or is it a promise?) unnerves him, but his body is reacting accordingly, warming to the situation. There is no plan. He takes the pressure Aziraphale gives him and it tips him up just a bit higher and then he pulls it down, back. Heels touch the ground, knees bend, he twists so that his arm can extend as far down as he wants it to.

It takes him a moment to realize, but Aziraphale has risen in response, his arm now stretched upwards as he steps closer to Crowley, passes his arm over Crowley's head so for an instant the stick is vertical, then comes down the other side. Crowley follows the momentum until the stick has completed a full circle, until he too has been at the top of a vertical rod and he too has come down.

His heart beats, determined to make its presence known. He wants to respond with a clever quip, a cutting remark, but all he can do is continue to move.

The pattern of above and below is getting frustrating symbolic, though, so Crowley guides Aziraphale to the middle space, the stick nearly horizontal. Aziraphale, who might have been enjoying the symbolism, frowns slightly but follows anyway. Crowley is a little amazed. They find themselves (and Crowley really can't say who started this one) circling each other. Even, purposeful steps, the stick still, level, turning between them.

Crowley has been watching the stick, but now he finds himself looking up, watching Aziraphale. The angel's eyes are bright and his mouth is slightly open as he concentrates, breathes,but there's something different in this expression that Crowley can't quite pin down. Something... unencumbered. 

The stick between them is no longer level. Aziraphale has dipped his end lower, and Crowley has countered, and now they are creating a sort of wave as they turn, A crest, a dip, repeat and walk. 

Crowley stops the wave and loops his hand backwards in a grand gesture, which Aziraphale mirrors and leads into a spiral. It occurs to Crowley that it would be hilarious if he led the angel into drawing some horribly demonic sigil. He can imagine the air sizzling, the sound of a wooden rod hitting the ground, the shocked and then slowly betrayed look on Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale would fluster and Crowley would laugh, and Aziraphale would storm out, a pinched expression on his round cheeks because Crowley couldn't be trusted not to ruin the things he utterly enjoyed…

Crowley cuts the sigil off midway through with a completely meaningless flourish in the wrong direction. He feels slightly ill, but that's probably because he and Aziraphale did all that circling a minute ago. Aziraphale raises an eyebrow, as though sensing something amiss, but Crowley shrugs him off and moves back with the stick pressed into him, in what becomes a large circuit of Crowley's flat.

Crowley’s limbs begin to ache, just enough to remind him that they’re not used to this. Aziraphale pushes him to the edges of the room until the plants on his windowsill brush against his back, and even onto the sofa, where Crowley laughs in surprise as his feet sink into the cushions. Aziraphale chuckles too. 

Crowley takes each command as a suggestion in a twisting, snakey way that makes it look like he's planning some of this himself. At least twisting Aziraphale's intentions to suit his own. His spine curves, his skin slides against his sleeves. He fits his body into the spaces Aziraphale isn’t, sensing as their bodies heat the space between them. When Aziraphale briefly winds up backed in a corner, Crowley thinks he might be getting the hang of it.

Then it happens. Crowley thinks he's leading when Aziraphale planned no such thing. Crowley turns one way and Aziraphale the other, and the stick, which no one had magicked to be more flexible, drops to the ground. It clatters loudly on the hardwood floor.

Crowley flexes his hand and stares. A part of him had been waiting for this to happen. A different part of him feels something unpleasant at the loss. _Failure. Absence. Betrayal._ He wonders why Aziraphale didn’t use his powers this time. 

Aziraphale picks up the stick. "Bother," he mutters, and then extends one end back out to Crowley.

Crowley just stares at it, breathing heavily. 

"Well, go on then," Aziraphale says. "It's not as though it's going to do any worse than it's already done."

Crowley feels the beginnings of a smile. He takes his end of the stick.

This time he begins with completely benign loops and swirls which Aziraphale first watches, then echoes, then embellishes. They stay in place for a while, letting their senses refocus on this one point of contact. Crowley’s heart slows to match their swaying.

Aziraphale closes his eyes.

This is Crowley's cue to do something nasty to him. Run him into a table or spin him around, or abandon the stick and leave Aziraphale partnered with the wall. Crowley doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, blinking one eye at a time, his chest tight with nerves, he closes his own.

In the darkness, he can still smell Aziraphale: dust and righteousness and butter and now sweat. He can feel the stick more vividly now, and when Aziraphale shifts on the other end he can feel that vividly too. There is still no plan but there doesn’t need to be.

Aziraphale guides them up, Crowley steps sideways to add a circle. Aziraphale pushes him back and Crowley acquiesces, but brings the stick lower as he does so.

They dance.

* * *

Crowley has never been very good at judging time, but the afternoon seems to stretch forever until Aziraphale angles the stick weirdly and it slips off Crowley's slick finger. Crowley's eyes snap open. Aziraphale's open moments after. 

"Sorry," says Crowley. He flexes his fingers. It feels like the movement has shaken parts of himself down into the crevices of this body.

"It's quite all right." Aziraphale picks up the rod. "I take it you enjoyed yourself?"

"No," Crowley says, not meaning it.

"You ought to come to class with me. We do much more than this, you know."

"I think not."

Aziraphale's face falls, but he nods resignedly. "It was nice doing it like this, here. Nothing against the humans in the class, they're all quite lovely but, well. It's different with you." He pauses as though waiting for a response. "Right. Well. I can give you the address if you ever change your mind." 

"I am not going to change my mind about "making connections" with sweaty humans in spandex," Crowley says as a slip of paper with the address on it appears in his pocket. A sweaty angel is quite enough.He hesitates. "You could leave the stick here though."

"Excuse me?"

"The stick. The, the thing. In case we want to do it again." 

Aziraphale regards him closely. Crowley squirms. Aziraphale breaks into a smile.

"I'm not promising anything," Crowley says, even though he is. 

"I know, my dear." Aziraphale presses the stick into Crowley's hands, and Cowley takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the deal folks: I'm not done with this piece. In fact, it's going to become the starting point for an independent study in dance and creative writing this spring! (What the heck?!)
> 
> So although I always treasure comments, if you have any enthusiasm or concrit about this piece in particular, I'd find them especially helpful. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores. Come say hi and scream about good omens and dance improv. :D


End file.
